Friday, June 29, 2012

When it comes to thinking about color the first thing to pop in to your mind is generally not sports. Sure there are team colors, home and away, there are new architectural venues for viewing, but there haven't been many color innovations coming out of the functional design of sports environments in recent years. This year at the Madrid Open, a professional tennis event held annually in Madrid, Spain, there was a big color shake up. For non-tennis fans out there a bit of back story.

The richly colored "clay" is actually not made of natural clay but instead consists of crushed shale, stone, or brick. After the powder is spread over the court it has to be a packed down into a level surface.

Aaron Spencer's striking photograph of Pascal Courel, who used to maintain the courts for the French Open, working on one of the rare American clay courts.

So where is the color scandal you are asking? This year in Madrid they tried out a brand new color: blue. As reported by PRI's The World the color is what Canadian player, Milos Raonic, calls it “smurf blue”. From Wikipedia: "Ion Ţiriac, the owner of the Madrid Masters states
that since 2009 they have been a clay court tournament. This year he proposed a new color
of blue clay for all the courts, on the grounds that it would supposedly
be better visually, especially for viewers on television."

"Critics
suggested that the adaptation of blue color is a nod to the titular
sponsor of the tournament, the Spanish insurance giant Mutua Madrileña. ... In 2009 one of the outer tennis courts had already been made of the new surface for the players to test it. Manuel Santana,
the Open's current director, has assured that aside from the colour,
the surface keeps the same properties as the traditional red clay." Many big name players like Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic are against the change as well.

Serbian tennis player Novak Djokovic removes blue sand from his tennis shoes with his racket during his Madrid Masters by Juan Carlos Hidalgo

The New York Times reports Nadal and Djokovic claim that the new courts play differently, throw off the rhythm of the players, and are an unnecessary innovation fixing something that wasn't broken. Supporters say that visibility of the ball against the court is actually improved by 20 or more percent. But unfortunately the beautiful blue courts will not be back next year. The Jakarta Post reported that the Association of Tennis Professional, the people who regulate these things, officially disallowed the use of the new blue clay.

We decided to look into color theory to see the statistics on blue. The visibility rating of blue in daylight is fifth, with red, orange, yellow and green ranking above of it. In 1976, researchers, Porter and Mikellides, conducted an Estimation of Time study. Two audiences were seated for twenty minutes in a red theater and a blue theater. The audience in the blue theater felt rather bored and were under the impression the lecture lasted longer, while those in the red theater found that time passed more quickly and the content was more interesting. We are not certain what visibility experts were being quoted, but agree with the critics - this is not a background color that supports visual acuity for players or TV viewers. It may be new, and beautiful as a field of color but not functional in this application.

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Here at Colour Studio we do a lot of thinking about color. We are not alone, as deep in the Brazilian rainforest there are people who can change the way you talk about color. The Piraha system of language is based on just eight consonants and three vowels. It possesses such a complex variety of tones, stresses, and syllable length that its speakers can sing, hum and whistle conversations.

Dan Everett with a member of the Pirahã Tribe. Photograph by Martin Schoeller via The New Yorker

Dan Everett, a professor of linguistics from Bentley University in Massachusetts, found that the Pirahã tribe of Brazil has a very unique way of thinking about color. Instead of having color names like red or blue they use context significant comparisons. John Colapinto writes in The New Yorker about Everetts language expedition:

"Everett ... learned that the Pirahã have no fixed words for colors, and
instead use descriptive phrases that change from one moment to the
next. “So if you show them a red cup, they’re likely to say, ‘This looks
like blood,’ ” Everett said. “Or they could say, ‘This is like vrvcum’—a local berry that they use to extract a red dye."

So if the tribe members speak about color differently do those words, change they way they think about or even see color? That was the question Paul Kay, a Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, was wondering about when he designed a color observation study comparing how infants and adults see color. The study used Magnetic resonance imaging to see the activity of the brain when shown colors into one eye verses the opposite eye. When an image is only show to the left visual field that image is processed exclusively by the right hemisphere, and vice versa. Kerri Smith writes about the study in Nature:

"Adults reacted more quickly if the target was presented in the right
side of the visual field, which is processed by the left hemisphere of
the brain. For babies, the pattern reversed: they were quicker if the
target was in the left visual field, which is processed by the right
hemisphere"

Kay's conclusions are a bit dizzying. He states that the study is evidence that language in the form of color labels, pink orange etc, transfers the primary observation of color from the right to the left hemisphere. But not everyone is one board, a quote from latter in Smiths article:

“The obvious conclusion is that language is constraining colour
perception,” says Kay. Language certainly seems a good candidate reason
for the difference, says Jonathan Winawer, who studies colour
perception and language at Stanford University in California. But this
is still a controversial idea, he adds, and not the only possible
explanation. “There are other things that separate adults from infants,”
he points out.

But many scientists agree with Kay. Steven
Shevell, a psychologist who specializes on color and vision is also convinced that we are changing our perception with our language. Via Futurity.org

"Color is in the brain. It is constructed, just as the meanings of words
are constructed. Without the neural processes of the brain, we wouldn’t
be able to understand colors of objects any more than we could
understand words of a language we hear but don’t know.”

Who knew the science of color is at the forefront of understanding the brain. Next time your are gazing at some colorful trinket take a moment to consider just how your brain is translating that image and whether you can really see a color without labeling it.

Friday, June 15, 2012

Its seems like everyone is trying to eat healthier these days. But what does that mean exactly? How do we know what really makes up a healthy diet. Many diets have complicated prescriptions about protein, fat and carbs. More of this less of that, never eat this, only eat that. It can get messy. But what if we could eat by color?

"Yellow fruits and vegetables are teeming with carotenoids and
bioflavonoids, which represent a class of water soluble plant pigments
that function as antioxidants. Along with antioxidants, sunny-colored
foods also have an abundance of vitamin C. Studies suggest that these
bountiful nutrients will help your heart, vision, digestion and immune
system. Other benefits of naturally yellow foods include maintenance of
healthy skin, wound healing, and stronger bones and teeth."

"Red fruits and veggies are packed with a variety of powerful
antioxidants that have been shown to help fight cancer, heart disease
and reduce the risk of macular degeneration, a leading cause of
blindness for older folks."

Greens foods maybe the best of them all! Not only are green foods full of chlorophyll, which protects against disease causing free radicals, but greenness is a great indicator that foods are densely packed with all sorts of micro-nutrients our bodies need. They help remove environmental toxins like lead from our tissues, and support the human Mirco-biome (the 10K plus species of healthy microbes that call us home).

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

The nail salon industry and the products supporting it have become big business. For fun this week we thought we would check in on the 2012 spring/summer color trends! Before we jump tothis seasons new colors we wanted to show off a bit of nail polish nostalgia. Up until the 80's the color in nail polish was red.

This 1951 Duragloss ad, via Lulu's Vintage Blog, prescribes polish based on a hand shape based personality test. Wonder if it worked.

This 1963 magazine for Christian Dior Nail Polish, via Attic Paper, features an illustration by Rene Gruau, a fashion icon of the time famous for his unique drawing style.

Nail polish has come a long way since the all red all the time days. According to Harpers Bazaar nail polish has gone in a distinctly tropical direction this year. Are we feeling like we could use a vacation to unwind?

Trends are driven by culture - news, art, theater. One recently released collection demonstrates just that. From Bazaar.com "The summer blockbuster of the season: OPI’s dynamic polishes inspired by The Amazing Spider-Man,
featuring brilliant reinventions of retro comic-book colors. The
best-sellers include the hot coral Call Me Gwen, the reptilian green
Just Spotted The Lizard, and the cityscape white My Boyfriend Scales
Walls." Are we feeling like we could use some entertainment as a diversion?

Applying only one color to your nails is a bit last season. Nail art is becoming fashionable and consider the skills required to execute it! Here are some of the more exciting trends we have found: microbeads, newsprint transfers, or even magnetic polishes full of metal powder that line up when exposed to a magnet!

If you want to find color and inspiration options all in one place Sephora has a great page you can check out. Trends in color try to offer some relief from the mundane - and looking at a unique manicure on yourself or a friend could certainly bring a smile.

Saturday, June 2, 2012

A study published in the journal of Science may help you decide what color to paint your next office or meeting room. Instead of going with a neutral color they recommend going with a bolder choice, like red or blue. You can go to Science magazines website to read the studies abstract.

According to a New York Times article on the study "Researchers at the University of British Columbia conducted tests
with 600 people to determine whether cognitive performance varied when
people saw red or blue. Participants performed tasks with words or
images displayed against red, blue or neutral backgrounds on computer
screens." While the study did not directly test the effect of room color on cognitive performance, its findings may be applicable when translated to whole room color."

The article continues:

"Red groups did better on tests of recall and attention
to detail, like remembering words or checking spelling and punctuation.
Blue groups did better on tests requiring imagination, like inventing
creative uses for a brick or creating toys from shapes. “If
you’re talking about wanting enhanced memory for something like
proofreading skills, then a red color should be used,” said Juliet Zhu, assistant professor of marketing at the Business School at the
University of British Columbia, who conducted the study with Ravi Mehta. But for “a brainstorming session for a new product or coming up with a new solution to fight child obesity or teenage smoking,” Dr. Zhu said, “then you should get people into a blue room."

When considering a room we must think about how the space will be used. Layout is of course important when considering function but so is color. Will this space we used to foster new ideas or focus on the nitty gritty? Will its users need open skies for open minds or passion for the finishing touches? Color isn't the only factor but as this study shows it can influence our behaviors in distinct and measurable ways.

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